This is a blog for Texas State students taking FCS 4347 (Family Policy) to be able to post their weekly reading assignment (3 newspaper articles about issues or policies that effect individuals and families) and to write their reactions, opinions and implications of the articles.

Friday, September 13, 2013

FDA announces new labeling rules for opioid painkillers, including oxycodone

4. This article concerns:This article concerns patients who have cancer and other patients who are being prescribed a high dosage of Oxycontin. Many people are taking this drug to work as a painkiller for back pain or arthritis, but instead it should be given to those patients who have a serious medical condition.

5. This affects individuals:The Food and Drug Administration will require starker warning labels on OxyContin and other painkillers to lower the rate of addiction towards this drug. Since many patients are taking this drug how will they cope when they longer can take those drugs to help cure pain. The overuse of this drug has caused many deaths each year. This will require new labels stating that they are intended for the management of pain, "severe enough to require daily, around the clock, long term treatment." The warnings, which will take effect in coming months,
will say that because of the risks of addiction, abuse and misuse, even
for patients who use the drug as directed .Opioids should be used only
for patients for whom other treatments are not sufficient.

6. My views on this issue: I think this will be a good idea because people misuse drugs everyday which can lead to more health problems and death. By requiring labels that state they are intended to manage pain I am not sure if that will change much, but I do agree it could help a little bit. I personally don't sympathize with those who take drugs because of their addiction, because they are individuals out there that don't have the resources to take medicine and help them with their serious medical condition.
16,651 died from overdoses involving opioids. That same year, the FDA
said enough opioid pain relievers were sold to medicate every adult in
the United States with the typical dose of 5 milligrams of hydrocodone
every four hours for a month, a 300 percent increase from barely a
decade earlier. Hopefully this will decrease the number of deaths and reduce the number of people who are addicted to this medication!

1 comment:

I agree with you on the fact that a more obvious label is not going to help prevent anyone from becoming addicted to any drug. That idea to me is laughable. It makes me feel that the FDA is naive. What is happening is drug addicts are dying from overdosing on these drugs- NOT people taking them for pain management. Opioids have many negative side effects like nausea, vomiting, headache, and constipation that do not decrease with continued use of the drug. This clinical trial from pub med states that here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18443635

So can you imagine regular people taking these drugs for pain management and every time they took it they threw up. I think they might refrain from taking it. Now that brings me to the drug addict that doesn't care about not pooping for days and throwing up after they get high. And even they complain about the severity of the side effects.I've known a handful of serious oxycontin/heroin addicts. Let me talk about two of them. We'll call the first guy Mark. Mark was one of those babies who cried all the time. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong with him. He's in his 30's now and they still don't know. He complains of stomach pains all the time. He says his stomach always hurts and it always has since he was a baby, which is why he take oxycontin. That's all the doctors could do for his is offer pain management. Does he still abuse his pills? Absolutely. But it seems that he really needs them. The second guy, let's call him Richard, was an ex-heroin addict who had been clean for about a year. Richard worked for UPS and he hurt his back. He had to have a disc removed and had to undergo surgery. So what do the doctors give hims to cope with the pain? Oxycontin. Big mistake there. He got hooked on those and started using again. So what are they supposed to do? Put a stricter label on the bottle! Right, great idea FDA.

I wanna end on this note though.Not being sympathetic toward a drug addict is your choice but it may not be the right one. Addiction runs in families. That has been well documented. Scientists are discovering genetic links to addiction as well. Check this site out: